New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a bitter gaming background. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics assured that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to create a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an accord with two important local tribes a year later, the Governor declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it seemed that American Indian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson passed the accord with the Indian tribes, anti-gambling groups were able to tie the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had out stepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. 10 years had been lost for gaming in New Mexico, which includes Amerindian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger from Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is clearly popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a slice of the action. Hopefully, the politicos are through batting around gambling as an important issue like they did in the 1990’s. That is probably wishful thinking.